Hey guys, welcome back to TNTH.

Yesterday while scrolling through Facebook, I stumbled upon a post that had pictures of various women chilling with their partners eating fast food at home and watching movies together with a caption that said: “NO THIS IS NOT A DATE.”

This has been a topic that comes up a lot because of the times we live in. I will say, dating nowadays isn’t the type of dating we’re used to seeing in movies and television shows, but there really isn’t no true definition of what a date should be. There isn’t a checklist of things to do in order for something to be a date. It’s whatever you and your partner are comfortable doing, and if you guys like to stay home and watch movies and eat, then that’s how you guys date. If you guys like to go out, then that’s how you date. There isn’t a right or wrong way to date, and no, I’m not some brainwashed cheap bitch who doesn’t know my own worth.

Money doesn’t buy love, it buys a good time.

But that’s not what this post is about.

In context, I’m a woman who lets the world know that going out isn’t the easiest thing for me to do. I get really panicky when I have no guidance or control, I get stressed when I have a lot on my plate, and most importantly, my social anxiety has gotten worse as the years gone by. If you were to ask me 10 years ago if staying at home with your partner eating dinner and watching movies was considered a date, I would’ve said no too. 10 years ago, I wasn’t dealing with the type of anxiety I deal with now. Now, I understand when some girls don’t go out on formal dates with their partner. I am a woman that cannot handle social gatherings that well. Even if I’m on a date with my partner, I feel exposed. I feel like people are staring at me and judging me and my partner across the room. I feel like I got to look the part, which then makes me uncomfortable in my skin. Yeah, it’s good to go out on “traditional” dates, but it doesn’t mean that I don’t consider stay-at-home dates the real thing as well. They’re “stay-at-home dates”.

I understand that dating a woman like me; a woman with social anxiety is not an easy task for anyone. It could be a burden, it could be tiring, and while you may be a socialite, your partner may be the complete opposite. Not all women that enjoy stay-at-home dates are anxiety-ridden; some women just like to stay home more often. I am talking about a specific type of women, the type of women who are deemed as insecure and weak, and those who are so problematic, they can’t see the hurt their partner is doing to them. I’m not saying that there is this epidemic where these specific type of women get taken advantaged of, hell I’ve been there, but for fuck’s sake, letting your partner know about your mental health isn’t a sign of weakness, nor is it an invitation to be stepped all over on.

But women don’t see the complete picture sometimes. Listen, I am all for the “see your worth, women” movement, but by doing so is also downgrading a specific type of woman. By saying “stay-at-home dates are for brainwashed women who think it’s cool to let their partner do that for them” is saying that they aren’t women who see how much they are worth. Listen, there are more ways to determine if a person respects your worth or not, and eating food at home with some movies playing doesn’t say anything about my worth.

What it says, though, is that my partner takes into consideration how I am in social settings and what makes me the calmest and most comfortable. It says that I personally don’t like my partner to spend a ton of money on me because of my own financial situation. It says that if anything goes wrong, I am in the comfort of my partner’s home and I don’t have to worry if I get an anxiety attack in the middle of the city.

In the last 8 years, there hasn’t been a problem with what we consider “dates”.

All in all, stop trying to speak for women by degrading women. We, as people, have different preferences on everything in life.  If traditional dating every weekend is how you define your self-worth in a relationship, then that’s you. If traditional dating isn’t something you define your self-worth in a relationship, then that’s you. Not all women are the same, and I think we established that when the body positive movement began.

But I digress.

Tell women that their worth is a self-defined concept. Whatever determines their self-worth is on them, not over a superficial concept of traditional dating.

-Liz. (:

Hey guys, welcome back to TNTH.

I normally wouldn’t spontaneously write a post complaining about something so personal to me, especially when it’s anxiety-related. I personally am one of those people who find themselves hiding their anxiety-related issues because I feel like a burden to those around me. Anxiety is one of those difficult things to explain to people who don’t normally let anxiety get to them. Everyone deals with anxiety differently, but it doesn’t mean that there’s not a single person on this planet who hasn’t felt it before. Some people just don’t understand that others find it more difficult to cope with their anxiety. I am one of those people fighting every single day to overcome my anxiety issues.

Today, I am writing this in hopes to let people who deal with this type of anxiety that it’s okay to talk about it. It needs to be talked about. I am also writing this to let the others know that these type of people exist in your world, they just hide it because they are afraid of your type of judgment.

As I mentioned way back then in my Social Anxiety post, I’ve had social anxiety for almost 10 years now. It’s one of those things I believe will never change, but it doesn’t mean that I let it ruin my life. Since I wrote that post, I’ve had help trying to cope with my social anxiety. Not only am I learning how to be comfortable in my own skin, but I also have Obie helping me find ways to cope and overcome social anxiety whenever it kicks in. But just when I thought I was becoming more fearless and braver, I found myself feeling those familiar emotions in a different way.

I found myself developing high-functioning school-related anxiety.

Without being too repetitive of myself, I started grad school a year ago and since then, I’ve seen the ugly side of it. It’s constant reading, constant reading, constant critical thinking, and hours and hours spent doing all those things, especially when “final paper season” comes around. As the semesters went by, I started finding myself getting extremely anxious doing school work for my classes, even going as far as getting anxiety attacks the night before my class because I had to go to my class that following night. I began to cry myself to sleep because I was just so anxious having to go to my school and coming home late at night. I’ve had my family tell me countless times to talk to a professional about this newfound anxiety, but I can’t lie – I feel into the epidemic of not wanting to share my anxiety with someone else because I felt ashamed to seek help. To this day, I still do.

Prior to grad school, I never felt the type of anxiety I have for school as I do now. During my undergrad, I would have to wake up at 5:20 in the morning just to make it to school by 7. Never once was I nervous to travel in the dark on Autumn days; never once did I wake up feeling like there were bricks tied to my ankles. Now in grad school, I feel the constant anxiety bubbling up inside me whenever I have to travel across the island back to Brooklyn at 10 o’clock at night. I feel my heart beating against my chest whenever I have to wait at a bus stop for 30 minutes without anyone else waiting for it with me, especially after the time I encountered a drunk man at the bus stop one night who wouldn’t leave me alone and kept getting closer and closer to me. To this day I am scared shitless of standing at bus stops at night. Not once during undergrad did I feel like there weren’t other students and faculty members that understood what type of English student I am; I always felt welcomed in my undergrad English program. Not once did I ever feel a professor look at me and talk to me like I didn’t belong in that program. I now feel all of the above as a grad student.

My school-related anxiety is something I have to constantly fight with so that I am able to get what I need to be done. The work is unavoidable at this level. I have to get work done every single day to get myself ready for every upcoming class. I have to read entire books in a week to discuss it in class. I have to get up in front of my class and do class presentations knowing that my anxiety will be the reason I stumble on my words and stutter. I have to get shit done to earn my master’s degree, but some days are harder than others.

Today, I felt really good because I had an entire day to myself to relax. I had no lingering thoughts in the back of my head drilling me that I had work to do. After working on two very big projects this past week, I needed this day off. As a person who deals with high-functioning anxiety, I need to find ways to calm my mind before I let it get out of control. All I did today was sit back and watch videos that made me happy. Today, I realized that the way I felt today is the way I want to feel every single day. I’m mentally tired of the shit anxiety puts my mind through; I’m tired of letting it win. Most of all, I’m tired of people looking at me and my anxiety as “just another girl whining about grad school.”

But to be happy meant that I needed to admit to myself that I am dealing with such a high-functioning type of anxiety.

My anxiety matters. My anxiety is the reason why I am who I am today, and I work the way I work. I’m not proud of letting my high-functioning anxiety dictating my life; I’m ashamed, to say the least. What I do know, though, is that I’m strong enough to acknowledge that I am an anxious person, and instead of trying to erase it out of my life, I deal with it. I make sure I get all my work done days before it’s due so that the anxiety of doing things last-minute doesn’t ruin my week. I make sure that I leave for school earlier than I need to so that I am traveling to campus with people my age and not old men returning home to their wives during rush hour. I make sure I plan everything accordingly not because I’m disorganized, but because I need to keep my mind as clear and simple as possible in order to keep it stress-free.

But even after all of that, anxiety wears a thousand faces.

I know it’s something that won’t be going away until I finish grad school this upcoming Spring. I know that the work only gets harder from here. But I am coping, and I’m finding ways to not let this high-functioning anxiety get the best of me. For a year, it practically ruined my life. I let my anxiety for school open other doors, creating more opportunities for anxiety to take over me. For a year, I masked this anxiety under every little thing besides what it actually was, because I was too afraid to speak up. But I’m tired of letting it do that. I want to live a life where, yes, high-functioning anxiety will always be present in my life, but I also want to be happy for the things I can control. It’s not easy, but I know I can make it through.

Yes, I totally sang the Degrassi theme song while typing that.

All in all, anxiety matters. Acknowledge it, then fuck that bitch up.

-Liz. (:

Hey guys, welcome back to TNTH!

We live in a world where we want to believe that the world accepts the gray areas in life. While we try to create those acceptable gray areas in certain environments and issues, sometimes it just isn’t enough. There are people who are still confused about the fact that there’s more than one gender, more sexual orientations than the ones abbreviated in the LGBTQ community name.

One thing I feel like that’s still very black and white is the whole concept of masculine and feminine and what really defines these two terms. I’ve started realizing this when I cut my hair really short a couple of weeks ago. I mean this is off-topic, but I cut my hair because I did some really bad chemical damage over the summer, and I’m in the process of letting it grow out healthy. I’ve had all different lengths of hair in my life, whether it’s been really long down my back, or chin length — I’m not afraid of the big chop. This time has felt different though. Lately, I’ve been feeling like I’m not “womanly” enough because of it. On top of that, I don’t dress “girly”, so whenever I go out and see the long-haired women with girly outfits and a full face of makeup on, it does make me feel like less of a woman.

But does that really define femininity? Is femininity defined by vanity?

It’s easy to fall down the rabbit hole of insecurity when people look at you differently when you don’t fit that certain look. People don’t seem to compliment those with short hair, the opposite sex don’t really pay any mind to the girls who aren’t “girly”, and girls who don’t wear a full face of makeup every day are not considered “that pretty.” It’s a disgusting perspective on women; that they have to be delicate and girly to be considered a feminine woman, and those who aren’t are “manly” or considered “tomboys”. The type of women who seem to be celebrated is those who fit into that stereotype of femininity while the others are simply looked over.

There’s nothing wrong being a woman with long hair who’s style is girly and wears makeup. If that’s your prerogative, that’s you and there’s nothing wrong about it. What’s wrong about this entire thing is the social acceptance of being that type of woman. It’s pretty much the same thing with men: a masculine man is usually defined as one who is fit, athletic, tall, and dominant. Every man that doesn’t appear like that is usually called punks, pussies, or even gay. There’s a downside to both sides of the spectrum: attractiveness and self-esteem stems from being the role that you were “assigned” in life.

Although I identify as a cisgender woman (cisgender meaning that I identify with the sex and gender I was assigned to), I don’t think I’ll ever find myself being your typical girly or feminine like a cisgender woman. I won’t learn how to contour, conceal, highlight, do whatever to my face with makeup, I won’t choose dresses or skirts as my clothing of choice, and I don’t think I’ll ever grow out my hair to my ass. I don’t think my taste in my own look would ever fall under that umbrella of femininity, but it doesn’t mean that I’m not a feminine woman. We are in 2017, there are literally lists of people’s styles and preferences regarding sex and gender. People come in all different shapes and sizes, as well as different lifestyles and preferences. Masculinity and Femininity, to me, are very old-fashioned. While some people still use the term to describe their preferences in style, it still shouldn’t be something used to describe people as a whole.

To me, femininity is a spectrum of all different types of girls and women. We are more than just frilly pinks and glitter. We are more than just long, luscious locks. We are more than the booming makeup trends that determine your beauty. We’re versatile. We’re both girly and grunge. We’re both long and short hair. We wear makeup some days and bare face on the other. We’re confident, sexy, and beautiful in our own unique way.

SO cheesy, Liz. 

If you’re interested to read the list of different labels and identification regarding sex and gender, here’s a really cool article I read prior writing this post.

Let’s be more open, shall we?

-Liz. (: